This application claims priority to an applications entitled xe2x80x9cDevice and Method For Automatically Generating Dance Pattern by Used Audio Signalxe2x80x9d filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on May 2, 2000 and assigned Ser. No. 2000-23573, and xe2x80x9cMethod for Automatically Generating Dance Pattern Using Audio Signalxe2x80x9d filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on Apr. 16, 2001 and assigned Ser. No. 2000-20278, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a dance game, and in particular, to a method for creating dance patterns using an audio signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a dance game such as DDR(trademark) (Dance Dance Revolution) game is popular among the youth. In the dance game, a gamer dances to background music by stepping (foot-stomping or touching) at specific points according to dance patterns displayed on the screen of a game machine. The game machine includes a dance apparatus for use in a game room, a personal computer (PC), and a CD (Compact Disk) game apparatus. In general, the dance patterns are displayed on the screen as up-arrow (↑), down-arrow (↓), left-arrow (←) and right-arrow (xe2x86x92). Such dance game machines are disclosed in Korean patent publication No. 99-78623, entitled xe2x80x9cDance Game Apparatus and Step-on Base for Dance Gamexe2x80x9d; EP 0 823 270 A2, entitled xe2x80x9cVideo Dance Game Apparatusxe2x80x9d; and EP 0 974 382 A1, entitled xe2x80x9cDance Game Apparatus and Step-on Base for Dance Gamexe2x80x9d, the contents of all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
Currently, the conventional dance game apparatus supports only a limited number of songs previously registered in the DDR package, and each song registered in the DDR package has its unique dance patterns which are previously determined. Accordingly, the gamer can enjoy the dance game by choosing only the songs (or music) registered in the DDR package.
Sometimes, however, the gamer desires to dance to his favorite music not registered in the DDR package. The conventional dance game apparatus, however, cannot meet these desires of the gamer if the music is not registered in the DDR package. Even though it may play the non-registered music, the dance game apparatus cannot create dance patterns matching to the music. Therefore, the gamer cannot enjoy dancing to the music not registered in the DDR package.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a method for automatically creating dance patterns of music desired by a user, thereby enabling the user to enjoy dancing even to non-registered music.
To achieve the above and other objects, there is provided a method for automatically creating dance patterns using an audio signal of music. The method comprises: extracting power feature of an audio signal of each processing window by covering the audio signal with the processing window for analyzing the audio signal at regular intervals, and extracting the processing windows indicating a part having strong-beat power feature as beating widow candidates; determining beating windows corresponding to the points where beating should be conducted according to predetermined dance pattern creating option, out of the beating window candidates; and assigning predetermined unique beating codes to the determined beating windows in order of dance patterns based on the dance pattern creating option, and creating beating data of the dance patterns using the beating codes and time information indicating a time interval between beating windows.
Preferably, the dance pattern creating option includes a genre option of the music and a level option of the dance patterns to be created. Further, the dance pattern creating option includes a sample frequency option for analyzing the audio signal and a size option of the processing window.
Preferably, the level option of the dance patterns includes a number of concurrently created dance patterns, a number of dance patterns created over one piece of music, and maximum and minimum intervals between the dance patterns.
Preferably, the time information indicates a difference in number of the processing windows between a specific beating window and its preceding beating window.
Preferably, the beating window extracting step comprises calculating an average energy value of each processing window; primarily differentiating the average energy value and then secondarily differentiating the primary differential value; and extracting the processing windows having a negative secondary differential value as the beating window candidates.